

Jif 



PR 1857 
.S4 
Copy 1 



THE SOURCE OF CHAUCER'S 
AN ELI DA AND A R CITE 



BY 



EDGAR F^SHANNON 



[Keprinted from the Publications of the Modern Language Association of 
America, xxvil, 4.] 




The Modern Language Association of America 
1912 






THE SOURCE OF CHAUCER'S ANELIDA 
AND ARCITE 

The question as to the source of Chaucer's unfinished 
poem Anelida and Arcite is an unsolved problem. Pro- 
fessor Skeat points out in his introduction to this poem * 
that the first three stanzas are from Boccaccio's Teseide, 
as are also stanzas 8, 9, and 10; and that stanzas 4 to 
7 are partly from Statius. The origin of the rest of the 
poem, which is far the greater part, is unknown. 

The poem belongs among that class of lyrics known 
technically as complaints,, as its title indicates, The Com- 
pleynt of feire Anelida and Fals Arcite. Chaucer begins 
with a proem of three stanzas taken largely from Boc- 
caccio. This proem ends with a verse giving hia 
authorities : 

" First folow I Stace and after him Corinne." 

The story then opens with an adaptation of some verses 
from Statius's Thebaid, xu, 519, etc. The eighth, ninth, 

1 Oxford Chaucer, Vol. I, p. 77. 

461 



462 



EDGAK F. SHANNON 



and tenth stanzas again are from Boccaccio. After line 
70, we have no further trace of a source, and for three 
Teasons we may fairly consider the story itself to be an 
original attempt. First, Chancer takes his setting, the 
court of Theseus, from the Teseide of Boccaccio ; but that 
source does not furnish the story which he here tells. 
It is improbable that he would have taken this setting 
from the Teseide if he had had another source for his 
story. Second, the names, Anelida and Arcite, come from 
different cycles of stories, Anelida apparently originating 
in the Arthurian romances, 1 and Arcite coming from the 
Alexandrian cycle. Third, the story was left unfinished. 
If Chaucer had been following a definite source, he would 
no doubt have finished the story. 

1 Schick, in his edition of the Temple of Glas, E. E. T. S., p. cxx, 
says in a note upon the list of lovers given in the Intelligenza: 
" This list is interesting as giving, amongst others, the following 
pair of lovers (stanza 75, 1. 2) : 

' La bella Analida et lo bono Ivano.' 

This seems to point to one of the Romances treating of Iwain 
and the Round Table for the origin of the name Anelida, which 
would at once upset Bradshaw's and Professor CowelPs ingenious 
etymologies from 'Awi'ns and Anahita: for I do not believe that 
both the poet of the Intelligenza and Chaucer mistook a t for an I. 
We have also in Froissart's Dit du bleu Chevalier the line (ten 
Brink, Chaucer- Studien, p. 213) : 

' Ywain le preu pour la belle Alydes.' 

One and the same personage is evidently indicated by the two names 
Analida and Alydes for Iwain's paramour: I am not, however, 
sufficiently acquainted with the Arthur-romances to know of the 
occurrence of such a name. Laudine in Chrestien's Chevalier au 
Lion is not very like it." 

On the name Anelida being a misreading of the name of the goddess 
Anahita of the Zoroastrian religion in some Latin text see Professor 
Cowell's article on Chaucer's Queen Anelyda in Essays on Chaucer, 
Chaucer Society, 1892, p. 615. 



±*~lA~ 






chaucee's aneleda and aecite 463 

This would seem a simple enough theory and so we 
might let the matter rest, but there are two troublesome 
questions which refuse to down. These are: first, why 
should Chaucer insist upon giving us an authority, Cor- 
inne, whom he apparently never followed; and second, 
why is this complaint so different from the ordinary 
complaints of the period? 

Let us consider first the possibilities of such an 
authority as Corinne. There are two whom it has been 
conjectured Chaucer might have had in mind, Corinnus, 
a reputed Greek author, and Corinna, 1 a Theban poetess. 
Either one of these names would assume, of course, the 
form that we find in Chaucer's verse. 

Modern historians of Greek literature, such as Christ 
and Croiset, make no mention of Corinnus. But from 
Roscher 2 we find that Corinnus was supposed to be an 
epic poet, a native of Ilium who lived before Homer, 
and during the Trojan war wrote an Iliad from which 
Homer borrowed the argument for his poem. He wrote 
in the Doric characters which had been invented by 
Palamedes; for he was a pupil of Palamedes. He also 
wrote the story of the war of Dardanus against the 
Paphlagonians. Roscher cites Suidas as his authority. 

The mere recital of the reputed facts about Corinnus 
seems to remove him from the range of possibility. 
Certainly Suidas is poor dependence in the way of an 

1 See Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, Vol. n, pp. 402-5 ; Skeat, 
Oxford Chaucer, Vol. I, p. 531; Globe Chaucer, p. 336. 

Miss Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual, p. 88, has, 
" I have queried if a MS. could have given Chaucer Corinnus instead 
of Corippus: see Sandys, Hist, of Classical Scholarship, 436; but 
there appears no evidence of Corippus' influence." 

2 See Roscher, AusfuhrUches Lexikon der Griech. u. Rom. Mytho- 
logie, under Korinnos. Fabricius in his Bibliotheca Graeca, Vol. I, 
p. 16, gives something about Corinnus based also only upon Suidas. 



464 EDGAE F. SHANNON 

authority. Nobody contends that Chaucer knew of any 
work of Corinnus ; for had there been an abundance of 
it extant, Chaucer would not have been able to read it 
on account of his lack of a knowledge of Greek. The 
question involved in considering Corinnus is whether 
Chaucer might have heard of him as a great writer and, 
in his desire to cite an authority, have seized upon his 
name. There seems, indeed, little probability of this 
being the case; for Corinnus was certainly little known 
to the Middle Ages, even as a reputed writer, if his 
name is found only in such doubtful authorities as 
Suidas and " Eudocia." 

In the case of the Theban poetess Corinna we have 
a little more definite information, at least as to her work. 
Guilelmus Cronert in an article in the Rheinisches 
Museum, entitled Corinnae quae supersunt, 1 gives; first, 
under the heading " Testimonial a list of writers of anti- 
quity who mention Corinna in any way. The names 
include Suidas, Themistocles, Pausanias, some Scholia, 
and Statius. 

Cronert's second heading includes what he designates as 
" Fragmenta apud Veteres servata." This list is made up 
chiefly of Scholia and grammarians such as Hephaestion 
and Herodian. 

A third list of " Fragmenta incertae Sedis " contains 
Priscian, Heyschinus, and Heraclides Milesius. Of the 
three classes, there are all told, according to Cronert, 
forty-one references to Corinna, the poetess. He adds 
a few which he designates as " Dubia " and which we 
need not consider. He says in a concluding paragraph 
that Corinna was much read by the Alexandrian poets, 
authors of antiquities, grammarians, and metricians. 

1 Guilelmus Cronert, RJi-einteches Museuvi fur Philologie, N. F. 
lxiii (1908), pp. 161-189. 



chaucer's anelida and aecite 465 

Here, then, was a poetess who was much celebrated in 
antiquity, but only her name had come down to later 
times with a few fragments of her work. We have again 
the same question as in the case of Corinnus. There is 
no supposition that Chaucer knew Corinna's work or 
even thought he was copying it; but whether he might 
not have heard of her as a celebrated ancient who would 
sound well as an authority is the question. In other 
words, can it be that he was using her name as a literary 
device in much the same way as he seems to have done 
with the name Lollius? This is, as anyone will admit, 
a tempting theory, but before we can assume it, we 
must see if it is likely that Chaucer had ever heard of 
Corinna. It is, of course, dangerous to assert that 
Chaucer did not know or could not know such and such 
a thing. We can only proceed from what we can gather 
from his writings and from what works we know to have 
been available in his time. So far as has been ascer- 
tained, there is no reasonable ground for assuming that 
he knew any of these writers who mention or quote from 
Corinna except Statius. Certainly we have abundant 
evidence of Chaucer's knowledge of Statius, for he quotes 
from the Thebaid in this very poem. Statius's works 
include two epic poems, the Thebaid, already mentioned, 
and the Achilleid, and a series of occasional poems en- 
titled Silvae. Now Statius in his Silvae, Lib. v, Eclogue 
in, line 158, has the following mention of Corinna: 

" Tu pandere docti 
Carmina Battiadae, latebrasque Lycophronis atri 
Sophronaque implicitum, tenuisque arcana Corinnae." 

This evidence would go far toward showing that 
Chaucer might have known the name Corinna as a famous 
authority at least, if it were not true that, though Stati- 



466 EDGAR F. SHANNON' 

us's Thebaid and Achilleid were well known and quoted, 
his Silvae was practically lost during the Middle Ages. 
There is only one instance known in all the literature 
of the Middle Ages of a quotation from Statius's Silvae. 
This is the occurrence of one line which seems to be 
from the Silvae in a letter written during the age of 
Charlemagne and therefore not later than the early part 
of the ninth century. After this the Silvae was appar- 
ently unknown until the discovery of a manuscript at St. 
Gallen in 1416, sixteen years after Chaucer's death. 1 

Such a theory, therefore, as to the origin of Chaucer's 
use of the name Corinna must rest upon the assumption 
that it is a literary device and that the name of the 
Theban poetess was known to Chaucer. For the first we 
can adduce the parallel of Lollius, but for the second 
there seems no reasonable basis. 

There is one other Corinna of ancient literature whose 
name has never been connected with this one of Chaucer, 
but the facts in the case seem much more to point to her 
name as the one to which Chaucer meant to refer than 
to either of the others we have considered. 

This Corinna was the mistress of Ovid whom he ad- 
dressed in the Amoves. Chaucer in the Anelida was 
writing a love-poem, and Ovid was the great authority 
in the Middle Ages upon love. The great popularity 
of his works is attested by all authorities. 2 It is needless 
to dwell upon how universally Ovid was celebrated in the 
Middle Ages as the poet of love. One of his works on 
love so popular at that time was the work which is now 

1 See Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, p. 618; Manitius, 
Phil, lii, pp. 538-45; O. Miiller, Rheinisches Museum, xvin, p. 189. 

2 A. Graf, Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginationi del medio 
evo, Vol. n, pp. 296-315; Sandys, p. 615. 



CHAUCER S ANELIDA AND AECITE 



467 



known as Amoves. Most of the poems in this collection, 
especially in Book I, are addressed to his mistress, Cor- 
inna, and from Manitius we learn that it was only the 
first book which was much quoted by medieval writers. 1 

But a curious fate seems to have overtaken this book 
of Ovid's in the Middle Ages. Its real title, Amorum, 
which was given it by Ovid, seems to have fallen pretty 
generally into disuse. For it various others were sub- 
stituted. Numerous manuscripts refer to the work as 
sine titulo; and from the early editors of Ovid, who put 
themselves to great pains to explain the true name and 
get it re-established, we find that it was also called Elegiae 
and Corinna. 

In enumerating Ovid's writings, Vincent of Beauvais 
gives the Amoves under the name of sine titulo. 2 

In an Ovidii Vita ex Lilii Gregor. Gyraldi de Poetarum 
Historia Libro IV, prefixed to an edition of Ovid's works 
by Cornelius Schrevelius, Vol. i, we find another refer- 
to the designation sine titulo. Gyraldus, who died in 
1552, has the following on this point: " Quae vero inge- 
nissimi Poetae opera supersint, breviter colligam Elegiae 
Amorum vel de sine titulo: de quibus sunt Grammati- 
corum controversial" 

Of the extant manuscripts of the Amoves and those 
of which the descriptions have come down to us in the 
catalogues of medieval libraries now lost, six designate 



1 Manitius says, — " Anfiihrungen aus Lib. II fehlen : iiberhaupt 
ist im Mittelalter kein Buch so wenig beriicksichtigt worden wie 
Am. II (und III), ausser den Medic, faciei, aus welchem ich iiber- 
haupt kein Citat gefunden babe" (Philologus, Supplement-Band vil, 
p. 736). 

2 Bartsch, Bibliothek der deutschen National- Literatur, Vol. 
xxxviii, Einleitung, p. 111. 



468 EDGAR F. SHANNON" 

the work as sine iitulo. 1 Three mss. indicate the title 
as Amorum. 2 

Though we have preserved no ms. describing this book 
as Corinna, we have excellent testimony to the fact that 
such a designation was common. From Fabricius, we 
learn that Hermolaus Barbaras, a distinguished Venetian 
scholar, born in 1454, called it by this name. This is 
what Fabricius has to say upon the Amoves: 3 " Amorum 
libri III, memorati Ovidio, Art. Ill, 343 : 

' Deve tribus libris, titulus quos signat Amorum, 
Elige, quod docili molliter ore legas.' 

" Hinc patet falli Hermolaum Barbarum, qui illos 
libros laudat sub titulo Corinnae Ovidii: vel autorem 
glossarum veterum, quas servo mss. et Jeremiam de Mon- 
tagnano, qui in Epitoma Sapientiae Venet. 1505. 4. 
edita vocat indium sine titulo." 

Further testimony upon the use of the title Corinna 
we find in the early printed editions of Ovid's works. 

1 Becker gives the description of four such mss., Catalogi Biblio- 
thecarum Antiqui, page 174, No. 74; page 196, No. 82; page 233, 
No. 115; page 239, No. 117. And the catalogues of French manu- 
scripts give two: Catalogue des Manuscrits, Departments, Vol v, 
p. 121; Bibliotheque de V Arsenal, Vol. II, p. 156. 

2 These are described in the following: Catalogue des Manuscrits, 
Departments, Vol. 37\ p. 635; Catalogus Codicum MSS. Bibliothecae 
Bodleianae, pars tertia, p. 115, (this MS. is prefixed by this distich: 

" Hoc opus est Naso titulo quo signat amorum 
Cantata est libris una Corinna tribus " ) ; 

Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Regiae, VIIM- 
CCCXI. This last ms. has animorum, which is plainly a mistake 
for amorum. See It. Merkel, Ovidius, 1855, p. iv, for a description 
of this MS. 

3 J. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina, ed. J. A. Ernesti, Tom. I, 
p. 444. 



chaucer's anelida and arcite 469 

In an edition at Frankfort, 1601/ there is a preface to 
the reader by the Venetian, Dominicus Marius Niger, 
who lived about 1490. Niger makes it clear that Elegiae, 
sine titulo, and Corinna were all known as titles to the 
work: 

" Praefandum illud mihi tantum, studiose lector, ex multis, quae 
Grammatici hac in parte quaerenda tradidere, hisce in libris, quis 
videlicet eorum sit titulus; atque eo quaerendum diligentius existi- 
niavi, quod doctorum hominum hac in re sententiae variant. Ele- 
giarum nomine multi treis hos libros appellant: sed parum recte, 
ut mea quidem fert opinio. Nam Elegiae quoque sunt, quas in 
Tristibus scripsit Naso; unde incertus et ambiguus his titulus red- 
deretur. Alii Corinnam vocant: inter quos est noster Hermolaus 
Barbarus, qui quoties ex hoc opere carmina citat: Ovidius, inquit, 
in Corinna etc. Verum non de Corinna solum hie loquitur auctor, 
neque Corinnam solam amavit, quod liquido patet ex elegia 4 et 
19 libri 2 Amorum, atque ex aliis in quibus factetur ingenue Naso, 
se multarum puellarum captum fuisse. Non tamen inficias eo, 
Corinnam ei caeteris chariorem fuisse, de eademque frequentius 
scriptum esse: ut si a majori parte ducendus sit titulus, parum 
peccet qui Corinnae nomine hoc opus vocant. Gravius auteni illi 
errare mihi videntur, qui licet manuscriptorum, depravatorum tamen 
exemplarium auctoritatem secuti, hos treis libellos De sine titulo 
nominant: ex quibus (quod maxime miror) sunt Laurentius Vallen- 
sis et Joannes Tortellius, qui non ineruditi habentur. Horum 
opinionem pluribus argumentis refellere non oportet: satis enim 
fuerit poetae sententiam et voluntatem de hujus operis titulo, ipsius 
verbis adduxisse. Naso igitur lib. 3 de Arte, hujus sui operis ita 
meminit: De tribus libris, titulos quos signat Amorum, Elige, quod 
docili molliter ore legas." 

Mcolaus Heinsius (1620-1681), the great Ovid com- 
mentator, in a note on the Amo'res which Burmann copied, 
says : " Amorum libros dici oportere quicquid obstrepant 
mss. ipse Ovidius lib. III. Art. 343 docet: 

'Deque tribus libris, titulus quos signat Amorum 
Elige.' " 

Burmann after quoting this note adds his testimony 

1 Ovidius, 3 torn., Francofurti, 1601, f°., torn. I, p. 177. 



470 



EDGAR F. SHANNON 



as follows : " Amores inscribi debere hos libros docet 
quoque Spartiamis in Vita Aelii Veri Cap. V. ubi narrat, 
Verum Ovidii libros Amorum in lecto semper habuisse." x 
Jahn, 2 a nineteenth-century editor, assigns a reason 
for the substitution of the titles, Corinna and sine titulo. 
In addition he cites an instance of the controversy of the 
grammarians over sine titulo as a name: 

" Inscripsit autem Amorum nomine [v. Art. Am. in, 343] qui titu- 
lus tamen librariis displicuit, qui in codicibus haec carmina plerum- 
que aut Corinnam aut libros sine titulo inscripserunt. Quam mirifico 
modo illi homines in hac re versati sint, apparet ex scholiis codicis 
Lipsiensis [senatorii], in quibus haec leguntur: De tituli carentia 
diversi diversa sentiunt. Quidam enim dicunt, hunc librum intitu- 
latum fuisse ab armis, solum auctoris attendentes propositum. Pro- 
posuerat enim Ovidius de Gigantomachia facere quinque libros, i. e. } 
de bello Caesaris, quod fuit inter Augustum, Cleopatrum et\ 
Antonium, habens Antonium et Cleopatrum pro Gigantibus et 
Augustum pro Jove. Sed cum tanto operi sufficere non posset, eo 
relicto de amore [scripsit], Sumerem titulum ab operis exsecutione, 
praesertim quia ab illo proposito fuit a Cupidine abstractus. Erant 
alii, qui dicebant, hunc librum intitulatum esse ab amore, sumentes 
titulum ab operis exsecutione, ubi solum de amoribus tractat. Alii 
vero dicunt, quod prae metu invidorum titulum apponere non est 
ausus. Erant enim Romae quidam invidi, qui titulos libris abra-' 
dentes suos apponebant et, quia sic de titulo dissentiebant, idem 
liber iste sine titulo quasi sub incertitudine tituli manet. Alii 
dicunt, quod damnato Ovidio librisque suis ab Augusto propter 1 
librum de arte amandi quidam, hunc librum reticere volentes, titulum 
abstraxerint, qui talis erat: Incipit liber amorum qualem habemus 
in libro de arte amatoria." 

Whatever may have been the reason that the real title, 
Amorum, was discarded or lost, the copyists seem gener- 
ally to have followed two courses, sometimes giving the 
title of sine titulo, and sometimes giving the name of the 
mistress to whom the majority of the elegies were ad- 

1 See Ovidii Opera, ed. Burmann, 1727, Tom. I, p. 323. 
3 Ovidii Opera Omnia, ed. Jahn, 1828, Vol. I, p. 227. 






chaucer's anelida and arcite 471 

dressed, Corinna. Ovid's prediction about her name and 
his being indissolubly united had come true: 

" Nos quoque per totum pariter cantabimur orbem, 
Iunctaque semper erunt nomina nostra tuis." 

Am. X, m, 25, 26. 

When the Renaissance came and men began again to 
read the classics for themselves in a critical way instead 
of Scholia upon them, they noticed that Ovid had him- 
self in the Ars Amatoria, in, 343, given the name of 
Amorum to this book which had been masquerading 
widely as sine titulo or Corinna. Consequently the 
printed editions, which were, of course, published in the 
light of this knowledge, all give the correct title, Amores 
or Amorum Liber. But the early editors, who had access 
to the mss. with the titles sine titulo and Corinna, found 
it necessary to explain why they made the change. There 
are similar instances of substitution or loss of names 
during the Middle Ages and their re-discovery after the 
Renaissance. A striking illustration of the loss of a 
name is the case of the Roman poet Martial who was 
called almost universally in the Middle Ages by the name 
Coquus. 1 

Chaucer is usually found to cite his authorities quite 
accurately. Why he does not do so in the case of Boc- 
caccio we do not know. At any rate he has no aversion to 
citing ancient authorities, and he refers to Ovid under 
the names of Ovide, Naso, and Metamorphoseos. From 
the foregoing evidence we must admit that it would also 
be very natural for him to refer to Ovid under the name 
of Corinna. Let us now see whether there is any reason 
for his referring to Ovid in this particular poem. This 
brings us to a consideration of our second question, why 

Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol., p. 619. 



472 EDGAR F. SHANNON 

the Compleynt of Anelida is so different from the 
ordinary complaints of the period. 

A study of the complaints of this period not only fails 
to disclose a single poem which might appear to be a 
source for the Anelida, but it also shows that the Anelida 
is essentially different from the general type to which the 
other complaints conform. The conventional complaint 
was so general and abstract that it conveys an impression 
of a literary exercise rather than the expression of sincere 
feeling. It is this stereotyped poem which we find so 
abundant in the French love poetry of the Middle Ages. 1 
It had become the fashion, and the poets expressed their 
artificial complaining with little or nothing in the way 
of incident or situation as a basis. The Compleynt of 
Anelida, on the other hand, is based upon a distinctive 
situation and is full of a spirit of reality and genuine 
feeling which places it quite outside this type. For the 
sake of illustrating the difference it may be well to quote 
some single examples of the French complaint to be com- 
pared with the Anelida. For such a comparison it would 
seem necessary to select poems which bear as close simi- 

1 Rutebeuf, a trouvere of the 13th century, wrote complaints, but 
none of them deals with love. See (Euvres Computes de Rutebeuf, 
ed. Jubinal, pp. 13 ff., 40 ff., 55 ff., 91 ff., 100 ff. For Machault's 
" complaintes," see Guillaume de Machaut, Poisies Lyriques, ed. 
Chichmaref, tome 1, pp. 241-69. Froissart wrote amorous ballads 
of the conventional type; see (Euvres de Froissart, Po6sies, ed. 
Scheler, Vol. II, pp. 366 ff. Granson, from whom we know Chaucer 
translated his Compleynt of Venus, wrote a Complainte de Saint 
Valentin. For a discussion of this poem and others of Gran- 
son's, see A. Piaget, Romania, xix, pp. 405-7. Deschamps wrote 
many " balades amoureuses." See (Euvres Completes de Eustache 
Deschamps, ed. Saint-Hilaire, Vol. in, pp. 209 ff. Christine de Pisan 
wrote " amorous complaints " of the established type. Her work 
was probably done too late to influence Chaucer. See (Euvres 
Poetiques de Christine de Pisan, ed. Roy, Vol. 1, pp. 281-95 and 
Vol. in, pp. 203-8. 



chatjcek's anelida and aecite 473 

larity in situation as possible to Chaucer's complaint. 
But just here is the difficulty. The situation in all of 
them is so little elaborated, the theme is so general and 
conventional, that there is little choice to make. The 
selections, however, have been made on the basis of simi- 
larity of situation, distinguishing details, and sincerity 
of spirit, as far as it has been possible to find these 
qualities. 

The following is a little poem in Froissart's typical 
manner. The theme is the complaining of a lover to his 
obdurate mistress. 

" A voua sui tout, dame gente, 
Apareillies d'obeir, 
De coer, de foi et d'entente 
A faire votre plaisir; 
Loyalment vous ai servi 
En espoir d'avoir merci. 

Mais ce trop fort m'espoente 
Que ne me dagni6s oir; 
Je voi bien que longe atente 
Me menra jusqu 'au morir 
Las! j'ai vescu jusqu 'a ci 
En espoir d'avoir merci. 

La riens qui plus me contente 
En confortant mon desir 
Et 1'assaut que j'ai de rente 
C'est un tres doulc souvenir 
Dont Amours m'a enriei 
En espoir d'avoir merci." 1 

As the following selection from Deschamps is analogous 
in theme with the Compleynt of Anelida, a comparison 
may more easily be made: 

Plaintes d'une dame. 

" Se j'ay ame" longuement 
De vray cuer et bonnement 

1 CEuvres de Froissart, Poe'sies, ed. Scheler, Vol. n, p. 387. 



474 EDGAB F. SHANNON 

Mon doulz ami, 
Et il s'est retrait de mi 

Soudainement, 
Sanz cause et sans mouvement, 

Amours regni. 

Car je 1'ay long temps servi, 
Am6, doubte" et chery 

Tresloyaument. 
N'onques a autre qu 'a ly 
Mon las cuer ne s' assenty 

Aucunement. 

Et je voi tout clerement 
Que malicieusement 

M'a deguerpy 
Et qu'il a amours choisi 

Nouvellement, 
Sanz dire au departement: 

Adieu vous dy 
Se j'ay ame - longuement. 

Et pour ce l'eure maudy 
Qu' amours en moy s'embaty 

Premierement, 
Et les yeux dont je le vy 
Et moy quant mon cuer ravi 

Si folement: 
En amours n'a que tourment, 
A Dieu du tout le commant 

Des ce jour cy. 

De moy n'ot onques mercy 

Certainement 
Aincoiz m'a couvertement 

Le cuer ocy. 
Se j'ay ame longuement, 
De vray cuer et bonnement." * 

Of Machault's complaints, the example which suggests 
a situation most like that of the Anelida, is one where a 
lady avows her love and complains of the lover's absence : 

1 CEuvres Completes de Enstache Deschamps, ed. Saint-Hilaire, Vol. 
iv, p. 185. 



chaucer's anelida and arcite 475 

" Mes dous amis, a vous me vueil compleindre 
Dou mal qui fait mon cuer palir et teindre, 
Car de vous vient, si le devez savoir, 
Ne sans vous seul confort ne puet avoir. 
Or vueilliez dont entendre ma clamour 
Et avec ce considerer l'amour 
Dont je vous aim, car brief seroit ma fin 
Se ne m'amies de cuer loial et fin. 
Amis, je n'ay nulle joieuse vie, 
Eins suis toudis en grant merencolie, 
Mais je ne fais jour et nuit que penser 
A vous veoir; mais po vaut mon penser, 
Quant il n'est tour, subtilite' ne voie, 
Ne maniere que j'y sache ne voie; 
Si qu' einsi sont mi mortel anemy 
Tuit mi penser, et toudis contre my. 
Si n'ay confort, amis, fors que tant plour 
Que je cuevre ma face de mon plour. 
Et quant je suis saoulg de plourer, 
Souvenirs vient mon las cuer acorer; 
Car il n'est biens ne joie qu'il m'aporte, 
Einsois toudis me grieve et desconforte, 
Dont j'ay souvent estrangle" maint souspir, 
Pour ce que trop parfondement souspir. 
Apres desirs ne me laisse durer. 
Si n'ay pas corps pour tel fais endurer, 
Car foible sui, dont piessa fusse morte, 
S'espoirs ne fust qui un po me conforte, 
Et si ne say que c'est de cest espoir, 
Car pas ne vient: si me degoit espoir, 
Et s'ay cause de penser le contraire 
De ce qu'il dit; pour ce ne say que faire. 
Or soit einsi come Dieu l'a ordonne; 
Mais je vous ay si franchement donne 
Moy et m'amour que c'est sans departir, 
Et s'il convient m'ame don corps partir, 
Ja ceste amour pour ce ne finera, 
Tu apres ma mort m'ame vous amera." 1 

It is easy to see that these complaints vary little from 
the characteristics of the general type which have been 
pointed ont. They are conventional and impersonal in 

1 Guillaume de Machant, Poesies Lyriques, ed. Chiclimaref, I, p. 254. 



476 EDGAR F. SHANNON 

style. They might apply to the case of almost any lover. 
It is the artificial complaining of courtly love that we 
find in all the love poems of the period. Some of Chau- 
cer's complaints are of this conventional type. The 
Compleynt of Venus, which is merely a translation from 
the French of Granson, deals with the usual abstractions, 
jealousy, constancy, and the like. The Compleynt unto 
Pite has the characteristic personifications, Love, Pity, 
etc. The Compleynt to his Lady, though it exhibits the 
stereotyped characteristics, especially in parts i, 11, and 
iii, shows in part iv more resemblances to Anelida's com- 
plaint in the Anelida and Arcite. But the Anelida and 
Arcite itself differs greatly from all of these complaints. 
In the first place Chaucer has a story to tell, and the 
Compleynt of Anelida is woven into the story so as to 
make a component part of it. 1 For instance, the story 

1 It may be well to indicate what is meant by complaint as it is 
used in this discussion. Skeat, in the Oxford Chaucer, Vol. I, p. 61, 
has defined complaint as follows : " The word compleynt answers to 
the 0. F. complaint, sb. masc, as distinguished from 0. F. complainte, 
sb. fern., and was the technical name, as it were, for a love-poem 
of a mournful tone, usually addressed to the unpitying loved one." 
This is a somewhat technical limitation of the word, but this seems 
to be the kind of complaint that was fashionable among the French 
love-poets of the Middle Ages, and the kind that Chaucer imitated 
in his early complaints. Professor Neilson has shown in his dis- 
cussion of the court of love genre that it was common enough for 
someone to present himself before Venus or her representative in 
the court of love with a complaint. (The Origins and Sources of 
the Court of Love, Harvard Studies and Notes, Boston, 1899, Vol. vi, 
pp. 231-2.) In these instances the complaint may be said to be an 
organic part of the story. But the word complaint is in such cases 
used in its broadest sense to mean any kind of grievance, and it 
really is a petition or " bill " presented te Venus for her judgment 
and is not a love-poem addressed to the unpitying loved one. In 
the same way we may call the d6bat a complaint. For instance, 
there is the complaint of the White Canonesses against the Gray 



chaucer's anelida and aecite 477 

part of the poem, told in the third person, narrates how 
Anelida in her faithfulness to Arcite showed him all the 
letters written to her by other lovers (lines 113-115). 
This same idea is brought into the Compleynt in lines 
2G4-5. In this respect Chaucer's Compleynt of Mars is 
similar to the Anelida; for it has a story in which ap- 
pears a complaint containing reference to the story. But 
as we have seen, Chaucer was not writing here altogether 
in the manner of his French contemporaries ; for he took 
his story from Ovid. Except for these direct references 
to the preceding story, the complaint in the Mars is of 
the artificial type. In the Pile there may be said to be 
a story in which a " bill " to Pity is introduced. But 
the whole poem is really a complaint written in the first 
person, and into this complaint of the death of Pity in his 
lady's heart the poet introduces a "bill" addressed to 
Pity herself. But the Compleynt of Anelida is more 
concrete and personal throughout. There is genuine feel- 
Nuns in Jean de Conde's Le Messe des Oisiaus et li Plais des 
Channonesses et des Grises Nonains. (See Neilson, pp. 67-9.) Here 
the Canonesses come before Venus, who is to decide the question, 
to complain that the Gray Nuns have taken their lovers. It will 
readily be seen, however, that these petitions are not complaints 
in the sense in which Skeat defines the term and in which I am 
using it in discussing Chaucer's complaints. There are numerous 
instances later than Chaucer where the complaint or lament is 
jv made an organic part of a story. Professor Neilson has called 

my attention to three instances of such complaints in Scottish 
poetry which show likewise the nine-line stanzas of the Complaint 
of Anelida. These are Sir William Wallace, Bk. n, 11. 170-359, 
Scottish Text Society, 1889; The Complaint of Cresseid in The 
Testament of Cresseid, 11. 407-69, Henryson, Poems and Fables, 
ed. David Laing, Edinburgh, 1865; and the complaint in the Quare 
of Jalusy, 11. 191 ff., The Kingis Quair and the Quare of Jalusy, 
Alexander Lawson, London, 1910. But Chaucer in the Compleynt 
of Mars and in the Anelida and Arcite appears to be the first poet 
to use the complaint in this way. 
2 



478 EDGAR F. SHANNON 

ing and passion in it. We are made to feel that Anelida 
is an individual and our sympathies are aroused in her 
behalf. 

Thus it will be seen that though this poem is generally 
thought to be an early one, and though Chaucer's early 
work was much influenced by French writers, there is 
not to be discovered any close relationship between Chau- 
cer's Anelida and the work of his French contemporaries. 

There is, however, one fertile field as yet unnoted from 
which Chaucer may have conceived his idea of this love- 
poem and complaint, and that is Ovid's Heroides. 1 From 
Chaucer's works written before the Anelida,, it appears 
that Statius and Ovid were the Latin writers with whom 
he was up to that time familiar. We know that he drew 
upon his knowledge of Statius for this poem ; and I be- 
lieve a careful study of it will be convincing that, although 
the story of Anelida is Chaucer's own creation, as has 

1 J. Schick, in discussing Lydgate's Complaint of the Black Knight, 
has suggested that the origin of the complaint may have been in- 
fluenced by Ovid's Heroides. He says, " Further, the ' Complaints ' 
of the Lady and the Knight as they present them to the goddess, 
recall to us a certain species of poetry which was at one time 
much in vogue in England and France. These ' Complaints ' are 
usually put into the mouth of a rejected or forsaken lover, bewailing 
his wretched state and calling upon his lady for pity. It is not 
impossible that their origin may have been influenced by Ovid's 
Heroides, which enjoyed so remarkable a popularity in the Middle 
Ages. We have such ' Complaints ' from French poets — -for instance, 
from Rutebeuf, Christina de Pisan and Machault: Chaucer wrote 
the 'Complaints' of Mars, of Venus, and of Anelida (of somewhat 
different genre, the Complaint to Pity, and turned jokingly^ the 
Compleint to his Purse) " Temple of Glass, E. E. T. S., p. cxxii. 

If in its origin the genre owed something to the Heroides, it 
is interesting to observe that Chaucer in the Compleynt of Anelida 
has broken away from his French masters who were by this time 
producing a type of complaint very different from Ovid's poems, 
and has gone back to the original source for his model. 



chaucek's anelida and akcite 479 

already been pointed out, he modelled it after the Heroides 
of Ovid and drew thence various details. The situation 
in all of the epistles of the Heroides is practically the 
same: a lovely woman, who has fondly trusted her lover, 
suddenly and without apparent reason finds herself basely 
deserted. Under these circumstances Ovid makes each 
heroine address a letter to her lover, expressing her grief 
and resentment at his faithlessness and at the same time 
entreating him to return. Have we not exactly a parallel 
case in the Anelida? To be sure, Ovid's work in each 
case is based upon a legend which attributes to his heroine 
the fate which she is experiencing. The story itself was 
already presumably known to his reader ; as, for instance, 
the story of Ariadne, who was deserted on the island of 
IsTaxos by Theseus and was supplanted by her sister 
Phaedra, whom Theseus carried to Athens with him. 

These epistles of the Heroides, we may presume, had 
fired Chaucer's imagination to attempt something of his 
own upon a similar theme. He found first of all that he 
needed what Ovid had already, a story which would fur- 
nish the occasion of the complaint to the unfaithful lover. 
Quite naturally he drew upon such storehouse of knowl- 
edge as he possessed at that time. Thus he took the 
setting of Theseus's court from the Teseide, linked 
together the euphonious names of Anelida and Arcite, 
and introduced a complaint addressed by the heroine to 
her lover, and modelled after the Heroides of Ovid. 

The spirit of the Anelida, to be sure, is more refined 
than that of the Heroides, but this is to be expected. 
Earthly as Chaucer sometimes is in his treatment of love, 
in drawing from Ovid he always elevates the theme. 

Besides the general similarities mentioned, the details 
in the Anelida point to the Heroides as a source. 1 

1 It may be noted that Penelope, to whom Chaucer compares Ane- 



480 



EDGAE F. SHANNON 



In the epistle of Ariadne to Theseus, Her. x, lines 137- 
140, we find: 

" Adspice demissos lugentis more capillos 
Et tunicas lacrimis sicut ab imbe gravis! 
Corpus, ut impulsae segetes aquilonibus, horret, 
Litteraque articulo pressa tremente labat." 

These ideas may be found in the Anelida: 
the weeping of the heroine, 

" Upon a day, ful sorowfully weping," 

line 207; 

the trembling of her body, 

" That turned is in quaking al my daunee," 

line 214; 

and the writing of the letter with her own hand, 

lida, line 82, is Ovid's heroine in the first epistle of the Heroides, 
and that Lucretia, referred to in the same line is celebrated by Ovid 
in Fasti, n, 721-852. But the linking together of the names of 
Penelope and Lucretia as models of goodness and constancy was a 
favorite idea of Chaucer's caught from a passage in the Roman de la 
Rose. Professor Skeat notes this as follows in the Oxford Chaucer, 
Vol. I, p. 490, note to line 1081 of the Duchess: 

" Penelope is accented on the first e and on o, as in French. 
Chaucer copies this from the Roman de la Rose, line 8694, as appears 
from his coupling it with Lucrece, whilst at the same time he 
borrows a pair of rimes. The French has: 

' Si n'est-il mes nule Lucrece, 
Ne Penelope nule en Orece.' 

In the same passage, the story of Lucretia is told in full, on the 
authority of Livy, as here. The French has: ' ce dit Titus Livius,' 
line 8654. In the prologue to the Legend of Good Women, Chaucer 
alludes again to Penelope ( line 252 ) , Lucrece of Eome ( line 257 ) , 
and Polixene (line 258) ; and he gives the Legend of Lucrece in 
full. He again alludes to Lucrece and Penelope in the lines pre- 
ceding the Man of Lawes Prologue (B. 63, 75) ; and in the Franke- 
lein's Tale (F. 1405, 1443)." To these instances may be added this 
mention of the two names in Anelida, line 82. 



CHAUCER S ANELIDA AND AECITE 



481 



" She caste hir for to make a compleyning, 
And with hir owne honde she gan hit wryte," 

lines 208-209. 

In Her. xii, 175-8, Medea says: 

" Forsitan et stultae dum te jactare maritae 
Quaeris et iniustis auribus apta loqui, 
In faciem moresque nieos nova crimina fingas, 
Rideat et vitiis laeta sit ilia meis." 

Anelida's reference in lines 229-234 to Arcite's new 
attachment and to his laughing at her pain is akin to 
Medea's words. Anelida says: 

" Now is he f als, alas ! and causeles, 
And of my wo he is so routheles, 
That with a worde him list not ones deyne 
To bring ayein my sorowful herte in pees, 
For he is caught up in another lees. 
Right as him list, he laugheth at my peyne." 

Both are thinking of the happiness of the lover and his 
new love; with Medea it is her rival who laughs at 
her in her grief, with Anelida it is her lover. 
The idea that is expressed in Her. n, 49: 

" Credidimus blandis, quorum tibi copia, verbis," 
Chaucer uses for a whole stanza, lines 247-255 : 

" Alas ! wher is become your gentilesse ! 
Your wordes fulle of plesaunce and humblesse? 
Your observaunces in so low manere, 
And your awayting and your besinesse, 
Upon me, that ye calden your maistresse, 
Your aovereyn lady in the worlde here? 
Alas! and is ther nother word ne chere 
Ye vouchesauf upon myn hevinesse? 
Alaa! your love, I bye hit al to dere." 

The idea that to be untrue in love will bring no glory 
to a man's name is expressed in two of the epistles and 
in the Anelida. Ovid in Her. n, 63-66, has on this 
subject: 



482 EDGAE V. SHANNON 

" Fallere credentem non est opera puellam 
Gloria: simplicitas digna favore fuit. 
Sum decepta tuis et amans et femina verbis: 
Di faciant, laudis summa sit ista tuae." 

The same idea is found in Her. in, 144, where Briseis, 
after asserting that Achilles will cause her to die by his 
neglect, says: 

" Nee tibi magnificum femina iussa mori." 

A fairly close parallel to this is the following passage 
from Chaucer's Anelida, lines 273-277 : 

" And thenke ye that furthered be your name 
To love a newe, and been untrewe? Nay! 
And putte you in sclaunder now and blame, 
And do to me adversitee and grame, 
That love you most, god, wel thou wost ! alway ? " 

Ovid and Chaucer give almost identically the ideas 
that separation from her lover means death to the heroine, 
and that his neglect has already banished the color from 
her face: 
Her. in, 139-141: 

" Aut, si versus amor tuus est in taedia nostri, 
Quam sine te cogis vivere, coge mori! 
Utque facis, coges: abiit corpusque colorque." 

Anelida, 284-289: 

" For either mot I have yow in my cheyne, 
Or with the dethe ye mot departe us tweyne; 
Ther ben non other mene weyes newe; 
For god so wisly on my soule rewe, 
As verily ye sleen me with the peyne; 
That may ye see unfeyned of myn hewe." 

The circumstance of the heroine seeing her lover in 
her dreams is given by both authors: 
Her. xv, 123 &.: 



chaucer's anelida and abcite 483 

" Tu mihi cura, Phaon ! te soninia nostra reducunt, 
Soninia formoso candidiora die 
Illic te invenio, quamvis regionibus absis; 
Sed non longa satis gaudia somnus habet." 

Anelida, 328-334: 

" And if I slepe a furlong wey or tweye, 
Tban thinketh me, that your figure 
Before me stant, clad in asure, 
To profren eft a newe assure 
For to be trewe, and mercy me to preye. 
The longe night this wonder sight I drye, 
And on the day for this afray I dye." 

Probably the most striking resemblance between any 
single one of Ovid's epistles and the Anelida is found 
in the suggestions of both Dido and Anelida that their 
laments are swamsongs. Both, in declaring that fate is 
against them and that they must accept the inevitable, 
compare themselves to the dying swan : 
Her. vn, 3-6 : 

" Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis 
Ad vada Maeandri concinit albus olor. 
Nee quia te nostra sperem prece posse moveri, 
Adloquor (adverso movimus ista deo)." 

Anelida, 342-8: 

" Than ende I thus, sith I may do no more, 
I yeve hit up for now and ever-more; 
For I shal never eft putten in balaunce 
My sekernes, ne lerne of love the lore. 
But as the swan, I have herd seyd ful yore, 
Ayeins his deth shal singe in his penaunce, 
So singe I here my destiny or chaunce." 

Besides these similarities to the Heroides, there is 
another indication that Chaucer was under the influence 
of Ovid in this work. In the Amoves Ovid harps much 



484 



EDGAE F. SHANNON 



upon the theme that we eagerly desire what we can 
not get: 

" Quod licet, ingratumst : quod noil licet, acrius urit." 

Am. ii, xix, 3. 
" Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque negata." 

Am. hi, IV, 17. 
" Quicquid servatur, cupimus magis, ipsaque furem 
Cura vocat: pauci, quod sinit alter, amant." 

Am. hi, iv, 25-26. 

Chaucer refers to this same theme as follows, — 
Anelida, 201-203 : 

" The kinde of mannes herte is to delyte 
In thing that straunge is, also god me save! 
For what he may not get that wolde he have." 

Not only does the similarity to the Heroides indicate 
that the Anelida was written under the influence of the 
Heroides, but Chaucer's continued use of the Heroides 
in his subsequent work reinforces the position that he was 
writing under the influence of the Heroides here. 

Some of the foregoing points may seem trifling in 
themselves, and it may be that Chaucer was not con- 
sciously borrowing in every case. At any rate he had 
so absorbed Ovid's epistles that he could write one in 
imitation of them and use perhaps unconsciously many 
of Ovid's details. Another example of such assimilation 
is to be found in Milton's Lycidas, which shows that its 
author was thoroughly saturated with the classical pas- 
toral, though specific borrowings would be difficult to 
locate. 

Thus we have found that the Anelida is like the Heroi- 
des, first, in general theme, man's unfaithfulness in love ; 
second, in situation: a fair and faithful woman deserted 
by her false lover addresses a letter of complaint to him, 



chaucer's anelida and arcite 485 

bemoaning the confidence she has placed in him, but 
avowing her constancy and offering forgiveness if he will 
return to her; third, in details, for almost every idea 
expressed in the Anelida has a parallel in some one of 
the Heroides. 

Now, as we have seen, it is quite probable that Chau- 
cer's ms. copy of Ovid, which he calls his " owne booke " 1 
designated the Amoves as Corinna. It is probable that 
this book included all of Ovid's amatory verse ; for Chau- 
cer's works indicate familiarity with all of it. If the 
Amoves came first with the Hevoides following, as may 
very reasonably have been the case, we should have an 
explanation of why Chaucer refers to his use of the 
Hevoides in the Anelida under the name of Covinna. 
However that may have been, the striking similarity of 
this poem to the epistles of the heroines points to Ovid's 
Hevoides as the model for Chaucer's Compleynt of Ane- 
lida. And we may reasonably conclude that Chaucer 
intends to indicate his indebtedness to Ovid under the 
name Covinna when he says, 

" First folow I Stace and after him Corinne." 

Edgak F. Shannon. 



1 House of Fame, Bk. n, 712. 



I 



014 044 107 7 \ 



